I have a problem with this. Almost always the power line part of the system is towards the top of the poles. This looks like it snagged the bottom of the pole wires, which would make it a tv cable or phone or something similar. Plus, This truck would not have been grounded due to the rubber tires being the only thing touching the ground right? Let’s see what the electricians have to say about it. Just my late night observations. I believe it caught fire but not because of the hook.

When you see insulators like those, they ain’t phone lines!! You can trust your life with rubber tires on 7200 volts, but I won’t make that bet!

I was working with a fellow who pulled out his 600 volt tester to check a 2400 volt system for hot. He did it without even thinking it was 2400 not 480. All I can say is Sq D make a damn good voltage tester. It held without shorting out!! We would both have ended our lives in the fire ball!

-- Bob in WW ~ "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence

hey luke just because the tires are rubber does nit mean that they will insulate them.i have many end dump trailers hit high voltage and do the same thing when they were dumping.i had a driver in reno not more than 50 feet away from me hit a primary line with his end dump and it blew out the tires on the truck and trailer in less than a second.and i felt the static from it in the cab of my truck.gary is there any way you could email this or its link to me.i would love to send this to my buddy who drives log truck here in washington state.my email is hudonrandy@yahoo.com

-- i wonder if obama stood in a wind storm with them big ears of his would he start spinning like a drill bit

That’s a lucky dude. A few lines up the voltage gets much – much ! – higher. (The electrical guys in the office looked at that and then pointed them out to me)

Electricity is amazingly dangerous and I hope nobody ever – EVER! – assumes that the low lines are telephone, cable, etc. Always assume a line on a pole is full of electricity.. and you’ll probably live through your experience with it.

The upper wires are 3 conductors at transmission voltage. Judging from the number if insulators in stacked up, the transmission voltage would be 69kv to 115kV. The lower level has 4 wires and the voltage is probably anywhere 4kV to 12 kV. One of the 4 wires is the neutral wire, but that is not necessarily considered grounded.